Dive Brief:
- More than 4 in 5 leaders expect AI agents to help manage a growing catalog of cloud applications, but just 23% of leaders have deployed the technology at scale, according to a Tuesday report from Unisys. The company surveyed 1,000 senior IT and business decision-makers across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
- Cybersecurity remains a pressing concern despite adoption plans, as almost all respondents said cloud security capabilities influence how much autonomy they are willing to give AI systems, with governance remaining key to effective scaling.
- “As organizations continue adding cloud applications, platforms and services without a strategic AI roadmap, managing complexity and adaptation becomes increasingly difficult,” Mike Thomson, CEO and President at Unisys told CIO Dive. “Agentic AI has the potential to help organizations address that challenge.”
Dive Insight:
Enterprise leaders see agentic AI as a way to keep pace with sprawling cloud environments, but most organizations are still working through the governance and security challenges needed to deploy the technology broadly.
Nearly half of respondents said they experienced a cybersecurity breach during the past year, compared with 17% in the previous survey. Meanwhile, 93% said cloud security capabilities influence how much autonomy they are willing to grant AI systems.
According to Thomson, AI agents can help IT teams improve visibility across cloud estates, identify inefficiencies and handle routine management work, letting teams manage complex environments without proportional increases in headcount.
The adoption gap reflects an ongoing shift from experimentation toward implementation, Thomson said. Organizations are prioritizing governance, operational readiness and high-value use cases before expanding AI agents across the enterprise.
“The biggest obstacles are visibility, security and trust,” he said. “Many organizations still lack a complete view of where data and AI workloads reside, while others continue to navigate regulatory requirements and concerns around managing autonomous systems at scale.”
As a result, businesses are taking a measured approach, focusing first on governance, operational readiness and high-value use cases before moving to broader deployment.
Adrian Clamp, global head of consulting strategy and investment at KPMG International, said the challenge is no longer gaining access to AI tools but creating the organizational foundations needed to scale them.
“Many organizations can demonstrate success in individual projects, but struggle to extend those benefits across the wider business,” he told CIO Dive. “The larger issue is coordinating people, processes, technology, data, governance and investment decisions across the enterprise.”
The findings in Unisys’ survey also suggest many organizations have built the technical foundations for AI but are still working to translate those investments into business value.
Nearly all of respondents said they have the architecture needed to support large-scale data-driven decision-making, up from 72% a year earlier. Yet only 65% said operational efficiency exceeded expectations, down from 80% in 2025.
For organizations looking to move beyond pilots, the priority should be strengthening data and cloud foundations before expanding AI deployments, Clamp said.
That effort includes building governance and accountability processes early, investing in workforce readiness and measuring AI success against business outcomes such as growth and customer experience, rather than productivity gains alone.
“The greatest benefits come when organizations rethink workflows and decision-making processes around AI,” he said.
Similarly, Thomson said organizations that realize the greatest value from agentic AI maintain holistic oversight over its use, treating it as part of a broader business transformation rather than a standalone technology initiative.
“The technology is important, but success ultimately depends on having the right data, the right controls and a clear understanding of the outcomes you’re trying to achieve,” he said.
